Equivocità dei testi normativi, norme espresse e norme inespresse

The outcome of interpretation of normative legal texts is the identification of norms. In order to analyse such interpretation, we need to distinguish among different forms of interpretive activities and among different types of norms which can be identified through those activities. In this essay, I outline: 1) three possibile forms of interpretation, that is acontextual (or literal) interpretation, contextual (or subjective) interpretation, and “legal construction of norms”; 2) four types of norms which can be identified by interpretation, that is possible acontextually expressed norms, possible contextually expressed norms, unexpressed implicit norms, and unexpressed norms which are identifiable by “legal construction”. Moreover, I distinguish among four types of equivocity of normative texts and I use this distinction to highlight some shortcomings of some skeptical theories of interpretation.